


La Belle et La Bête

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, Adventurer!Belle, Dark Castle, F/M, Fairy Tales, Rumbelle - Freeform, alternate fairy tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 05:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20773115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: A beauty, a beast, and a fairy’s curse. It’s an old story, everyone knows it, but perhaps not as well as they think they do. Belle goes in search of a beast, and instead finds a very intriguing man.Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling moodboard prompt, availablehere.





	La Belle et La Bête

Everybody knows the old story, of course. The travelling merchant gets lost in the woods and chances upon the old haunted castle, the home of the beast.

In return for his hospitality, the beast demands the first thing that the merchant sees when he returns home. 

The merchant makes the rest of his journey, and he hopes that his dog will run out of the house to greet him, or that the chickens will be pecking in the yard. 

But no, alas, his beloved daughter is waiting in the lane for him, concerned by his longer than usual absence, and the merchant must tell her the price that needs to be paid. The beauty goes to the beast, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Except, it didn’t happen like that, for everyone forgets that this is a fairy tale, which means that fairies must be involved at some point, and of course, our world’s male-driven narratives would have us believe that the merchant’s daughter was a damsel who went to her fate meekly, terrified of the beast into whose lair she trod. 

The truth of the matter is very different. The beauty was named Belle, and whilst she was certainly a gentle maiden who loved her books, she also knew her way around a dagger, and she had hunted other beasts in her time. She strode into the forest with her head held high, for what was one more beast after the other she had met in her lifetime?

Truth be told, she was glad to have an excuse to leave her small village. She was, after all, a beauty, and her hand was in high demand among the eligible young men of the village. All of them were hunters and fighters in their own right who would force her to give up her life of adventure and stay at home having babies for the rest of her life. Belle had no desire to become a broodmare for anyone, and she would make that clear to the beast once she arrived at the castle. 

The castle was legendary among the villagers, with so many differing tales being spread about the beast that dwelled inside that no-one knew the truth. Even Belle’s father, who had met the dread creature, could not describe it. It had kept to the shadows all whilst he had been in the castle and had spoken only in whispers. Defeating this beast had long been talked of, long been mooted as the ultimate prize of any of the hunters, but not even the bravest had dared to venture into the forest and set their traps. The village elders had ruled that since the beast was not bothering them, it would be foolish indeed to bother it. Belle wondered that the uproar that would be created in the village if she were the one to tame the beast. 

Belle had not counted on the fairies. 

She first realised that something was amiss when she arrived at the dark castle. As she was looking up at the foreboding architecture, it seemed to shimmer in front of her. For a few moments, the castle became a homely cottage, with flowers around the door and sunlight streaming down through the trees. Then lightning flashed and thunder struck, and then castle was back. Curious, but determined not to be perturbed, Belle stepped inside the gates and made her way up the path. There were no lights burning in any of the castle’s many windows, despite the dingy surroundings, but she was not going to let that cow her. She had come across a mystery here, and she was going to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing she did. 

She knocked on the heavy wooden doors and they creaked open, leading onto a pitch-black hallway. Belle entered with an appropriate amount of caution, holding her hands out in front of her. 

“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone there? My name is Belle, from the village of Avonlea. I’ve come as promised by my father, Maurice.”

“Ah.” The voice seemed to be coming from all directions at once, but Belle did not give it the satisfaction of looking around to find its source, instead just staring straight ahead of her and letting her eyes become accustomed to the dimness. As she adjusted, she could see the vague outlines of furniture. “You are the first thing that the flower merchant saw when he returned home, then?”

“Yes.” Belle paused. The voice now seemed to be coming from in front of her, and she could make out the silhouette of a man. Had he been the one to speak? Was he the beast’s servant? Surely he could not be the beast. She had always been led to believe that it was some hulking great brute, fanged and furry. This shape was small and slight. 

“Why did you command such a price?” she asked. “It seems so haphazard as to the prize it will bring you.”

“Oh, it wasn’t me, dearie, it was the magic. The fairy’s curse demands this price. I am simply here to collect it.”

“A fairy?”

“I have not always been a beast. Nor has this castle always been a castle. Come, I will show you to your room.”

Belle thought about the flickering glimpse of a cottage that she had seen as she approached. Fairy magic would certainly explain it, although now she was even more confused than she had been before.

There was a finger snap and a ball of flame appeared, hovering in mid-air in front of her. It was balanced above a palm that seemed almost to glitter in the firelight, but Belle thought that it would not do to get ahead of herself. The ball of flame began to move away from her, and it was clear that she was supposed to follow.

“So, what happens now?” she asked. “What do you want me for, now that I am here?” The flame stopped suddenly, and Belle bumped into something solid. “Sorry.”

“It’s no matter. Truth be told, this has never happened before. I have no more idea as to what the curse wants any more than you do. All I know is that now you are here, here you must stay.”

“Forever?”

“Perhaps.”

Belle reached out to touch the hand holding the ball of flame. Now that she was closer, she could see that the slight sparkle to the skin was no illusion or trick of the light. 

“Can I not see your face? If I’m to stay here for the rest of my life and know no-one else, can’t I at least know you?”

“You do not want to know a beast, dearie.”

“I have known many in my life already.” Belle thought of the young men of the village and their brutish ways. “I don’t think that you can be worse than any of them.”

“Very well. But remember that you cannot leave this place should my visage be displeasing to you.”

The light began to increase, and soon Belle was able to see the hallway in greater detail, including the man in front of her. 

She didn’t know what she had been expecting from this beast, but it was certainly not what she saw. He was definitely a man, although his skin gave the appearance of being somewhat scaled, and his large eyes were a strange colour of yellowish grey, teeth dark and mossy. 

“This is the result of a fairy’s curse?”

“Indeed.”

“What did you do to cause a fairy to curse you?”

“What cause do fairies need to do anything? They’re vicious creatures, loyal only to their own kind.” He paused, his head tilting on one side. “Is it very bad?”

Belle shook her head. “I would not call you a beast. Unusual, yes, but not a beast.”

The man nodded slowly. “I have never seen my face, you see. I can see my hands, I know how much I’m changed, but the mirror shows only the face I had before.”

He glanced over to his left, and Belle saw her own reflection in the glass. For a few moments, she was alone in the mirror, her companion’s image unseen, but then it rippled into view. He was a middle-aged man, with short greying hair and dark eyes. They were kind eyes, and as she looked back to the man in front of her, she could see the traces of that kindness in the otherwise unnatural eyes staring at her with unnerving stillness. 

“I think you could still be found handsome, even now.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I doubt it, but since we are to dwell together in this cursed place, I won’t argue.”

He turned again, moving away from her, making to guide her to her room again. Everywhere she looked, Belle could see the traces of the old cottage attempting to break through into the castle and make themselves known. Odd beams of light slanted across the floor from windows that no longer existed, and the scent of fresh flowers came from no visible source. 

Belle had read so many fairy stories in her time that she began to wonder. 

“Since, as you said, we are to dwell together here, may I at least know your name? I’m Belle.”

“Yes, you said before.” There was a pregnant pause, the silence broken only by their footsteps. “My name is Rumpelstiltskin.”

They continued on in silence for a while longer. 

“Have you ever tried to break this curse, Rumpelstiltskin?”

“How can I? I cannot leave the castle.”

Belle continued to wonder. Rumpelstiltskin could not leave the castle due to the curse, and it was the curse that had brought her here as the price it wished to extract. Perhaps that was its reasoning. Perhaps the entire reason that Belle was here was to break the curse. The fairy tales all did say that true love’s kiss could break any curse, and whilst Belle did not believe in love at first sight, it seemed that she and Rumpelstiltskin were going to have a lot of time to get to know each other. 

Unseen by her companion, she smiled to herself. Perhaps this could be a classic tale after all. 


End file.
